BgJonson79:Because she made 20,000x more money than what she started off with

How much did she start off with? Where are you getting this number?

She received, as part of a trust, a share of a mining empire. The empire's value doubled in the last year alone, due to completely external reasons. Her current wealth includes all of the money that should (by terms of the trust) have passed on to her children, but she is fighting them in court to prevent them from receiving their share, which was between a quarter and a fifth of "her" overall worth prior to the aforementioned doubling.

You're talking out of your ass. You have zero evidence that she did anything other than inherit a fortune. Except perhaps that she's also a greedy beast who won't allow her children the same access to the family trust that got her rich in the first place.

Greymalkin:But lets say you are actually an astute economicist (who doesn't have any money yet) what is your foolproof plan for turning that 20 million into 20 billion that every other sucker with 20 mil hasn't/wouldn't/can't think of and do themselves?

I would inherit a mining company in Australia in the 90s, immediately prior to a mining boom there in the 2000s.

brantgoose:You either have a democracy or an oligarchy. You now have an oligarchy. Democracy may not work all that great, but it is the very best of a very bad lot. Government by the rich is pretty much the worst seeing as it is pretty much all of the other forms of government: aristocracy, oligarchy, monarcny, tyranny, fascism, etc.

You can not fob me off with "oh, people who criticize the oligarchy are just jealous". Even a saint must be horrified by Government of the Rich, by the Rich and for the Rich. In fact, a saint must be MORE horrified than even the most envious person on Earth.

While I agree with you in principle I think you're sorely mistaken on the historical context of the United States. Nothing changed in recent Supreme Court rulings. Unfortunately the world doesn't work like it did in the fairy tale social studies class you took in Elementary School. The fact of the matter is that rich white men have pretty much owned and run this country from the start. There's a few token people tossed in from time to time to sooth the masses, but it's always been run for and by the rich white elite.

Lionel Mandrake:Greymalkin: But lets say you are actually an astute economicist (who doesn't have any money yet) what is your foolproof plan for turning that 20 million into 20 billion that every other sucker with 20 mil hasn't/wouldn't/can't think of and do themselves?

Please see my earlier response to the other guy that's asking me about things I never said.

Ah I see, you are just talking out of your arse then. Your statement might as well have said "give me any amount of money and I can make more".

I take back my earlier comment. I now think you are actually one of those idiots who would blow a 20 million dollar lotto win and end up in a cardboard box.

seadoo2006:If you make more than $200k, ANYWHERE in the USA, you're rich in my eyes. You are rich enough to do whatever you want. If you choose to have 6 kids and send them all to private school and have two new cars in the garage and a McMansion in NoVA, well, sorry, you're just stupid, not poor. Stop defending the fact that you make more than 98% of people in the US and still struggle to make ends meet. That's your own damn fault, not Obamas.

/end rant ...

So true, but on the other hand I also hate it when people who make like $100k/yr lump themselves in with the super rich people and try to claim that others are 'poor' because they deserve it or something. I am not sure where they get off defending the super-super-super rich. In my eyes, there are:

-people who do not make enough to pay for a place to live, food, or health care costs. these people need help.-people who make enough.-people who make more than enough. (you)-people who make more than the rest of us could ever dream of.

Jon Snow:BgJonson79: Because she made 20,000x more money than what she started off with

How much did she start off with? Where are you getting this number?

She received, as part of a trust, a share of a mining empire. The empire's value doubled in the last year alone, due to completely external reasons. Her current wealth includes all of the money that should (by terms of the trust) have passed on to her children, but she is fighting them in court to prevent them from receiving their share, which was between a quarter and a fifth of "her" overall worth prior to the aforementioned doubling.

You're talking out of your ass. You have zero evidence that she did anything other than inherit a fortune. Except perhaps that she's also a greedy beast who won't allow her children the same access to the family trust that got her rich in the first place.

From the article: Mrs Rinehart, who has seen her fortunes rise after parlaying a multi-million dollar inheritance into a mining empire now worth more than $20 billion.

I stand by my claim that it's not easy to get a 20,000x ROI. If you think it's easy, please show me the way so I can go do it :-D

Lionel Mandrake:BgJonson79: Lionel Mandrake: BgJonson79: Oh, I usually work with percentages when doing that kind of comparison because it's the only one that makes logical sense to me.

OK. When I talk about a lot of money, I usually mean a lot of money, because that's the only way that makes logical sense to me.

So if I sent you $1 million, you could get me $20 billion?

When did I ever claim any specific return? I said if I had a lot of money I could make it into more.

Quit asking questions about shiat I never said.

There are business loans. A close friend of mine used student loans to become a chartered accountant here in Canada. He then borrowed money to buy into a partnership of a local company. He now runs one of Canada's larger furniture suppliers to businesses and is very wealthy. He really did start with almost nothing.

Another good friend of mine got an engineering degree and after a lot of ups and downs with various companies that he started (one losing millions for his investors), he now runs a very profitable software development company.

Both of those guys started with nothing. I don't know how old you are, but these guys were rich in 15 years. I'm 37, so I should be living on my Italian villa by around age 50 if I get started.

I actually think it's really hard to do. I know both of these guys are extremely smart and worked insanely hard. One big difference is that they went out and did it. They didn't talk about it, they just did it.

About the biggest news story that the corporate-owned media is ignoring is the humongous drop in birthrates in the industrialized world. Russia is shrinking rapidly due to the high abortion rates and the huge amount of Russian men drinking themselves to death at an early age. Spain and Germany have fertility rates of about 1.5 children per woman and it's much lower in places like South Korea or Singapore. Even in America, the fertility rate is now about 2.07, slightly below replacement rate, even with immigrants with high birth rates. And this, folks, is BEFORE the inevitable economic crash that will come as a result of a national debt well over 10 trillion and idiot investors throwing billions at facebook. Even before the crash, we have millions of kids fresh out of college trying to pay off huge student loans on $10/hour jobs; I doubt it would take much more provocation to get them to renounce kids forever.

There are a few Internet articles about the huge numbers of people renouncing parenthood, mostly the usual alarmist crap from the usual paleo-conservatives who are upset that the labor pool of the desperately poor is shrinking. I think that Big Media is avoiding the story because once We Little People (TM) realize that dropping out of the gene pool is the only thing that puts the fear of God into the fat-cat plutocrats, a lot of my generation is going to run pell-mell to the nearest Planned Parenthood clinic and get a snip job...

Pick any laborer off of the street and they know more about hard work than this woman.

MOTHERFARKING THIS.

You know where people learn a real work ethic, biatch? When they're pregnant, seventeen, and Mom and Dad stopped fighting long enough to let them know they're getting kicked out next week when they turn eighteen.

And that never stops. If you don't get the chance to go to college, you end up the working poor. And that's your life. Don't you dare spit on it, because people just like you helped create it.

Alphakronik:Psycat: Just get sterilized already. Maybe $300 for a vasectomy and the rest of your life with be relatively worry-free. You won't have to shell out the $1/2 million or so it takes to raise a kid through college, your life will be a lot less stressful, and you won't have the guilt of forcing a kid into an increasingly fascist society. And, by removing a future working drone from society, you're ultimately depriving the plutocrats of a source of income...

Not sure where you think $300 vasectomy's come from, but go right ahead and go for that shiat. I'm sure it'll turn out great!

Actually, my vasectomy cost me only $225, but I got snipped right out of college back in 1987. And, yes, it turned out great knowing that I can fark like a crazed weasel and never have to worry about bringing a kid into the world...

BgJonson79:From the article: Mrs Rinehart, who has seen her fortunes rise after parlaying a multi-million dollar inheritance into a mining empire now worth more than $20 billion.

Her inheritance was a percentage of a mining empire. It doesn't specify a number. Multi-million could mean $2m, or it could mean $999m. Where are you getting "a 20,000x ROI"?

Regardless, what is your evidence that the increase in her wealth was due to anything other than the increase value of the mining empire due to external demand for metals and coal that she was handed at birth? We already know unequivocally that her fortune doubled in the last year alone due to nothing other than external forces.

Greymalkin:Lionel Mandrake: Greymalkin: But lets say you are actually an astute economicist (who doesn't have any money yet) what is your foolproof plan for turning that 20 million into 20 billion that every other sucker with 20 mil hasn't/wouldn't/can't think of and do themselves?

Please see my earlier response to the other guy that's asking me about things I never said.

Ah I see, you are just talking out of your arse then. Your statement might as well have said "give me any amount of money and I can make more".

I take back my earlier comment. I now think you are actually one of those idiots who would blow a 20 million dollar lotto win and end up in a cardboard box.

WTF? My statement said what it said, not what you want it to have said.

BgJonson79:Lionel Mandrake: BgJonson79: Lionel Mandrake: The Stealth Hippopotamus: ***snip***But we're dealing with percentages here. Let's say she turned $2,000,000 into $20,000,000,000. That's a 20,000x increase. I don't care who you are and what you start off with, if you can get a 20,000x ROI, someone will invest a crapton of money with you!

Give me $2 million to purchase a mine that is loaded with a finite resource that is essential to the world economy, and I guarantee I will get a 20,000x ROI.

If she had taken that money and spent it on an empty mine, she would likely not have such a tall platform from which to preach to others about the virtues of hard work.

roc6783:BgJonson79: Lionel Mandrake: BgJonson79: Lionel Mandrake: The Stealth Hippopotamus: ***snip***But we're dealing with percentages here. Let's say she turned $2,000,000 into $20,000,000,000. That's a 20,000x increase. I don't care who you are and what you start off with, if you can get a 20,000x ROI, someone will invest a crapton of money with you!

Give me $2 million to purchase a mine that is loaded with a finite resource that is essential to the world economy, and I guarantee I will get a 20,000x ROI.

If she had taken that money and spent it on an empty mine, she would likely not have such a tall platform from which to preach to others about the virtues of hard work.

FTFA:Mrs Rinehart, who has seen her fortunes rise after parlaying a multi-million dollar inheritance into a mining empire now worth more than $20 billion, blames anti-business and socialist policies for hurting the poor.

fireclown:Probably something to that, even though the messenger might be less than ideal.

What the hell. OK FARK, lets brainstorm. I'm willing to blow $500 on a startup. It has to be something that I can do while still working full time. Gimme your ideas.

Aquaponics. Combining Fish Farming (Aquaculture) with Hydroponics (artificial/mechanically assisted irrigated grow beds). Not many people make a *fortune* from doing this, but enough people can make their living based off of it.

Specifically, you grow Tilapia for meat, and smaller veggies/herbs. You have the water cycling through the fish grow tank and the vegetable racewayways(or however you wish to set it up), which helps simulate the natural nitrogen cycle. This A) Helps give nutrients to the plants from the fish waste, and B) Helps clean the water from the fish waste. Further, certain setups can allow the fish to nibble on the roots of whatever plants you have in the fish growout tanks.

Tilapia will eat just about anything, but need a bit of a variet diet. This can be grown on-site. Duckweed is often considered to be the bane of people who run fish tanks, but can be fed to Tilapia as a good portion of their diet. It's easy to grow, and is a fairly high-density food - and you can feed it to other fish. Tilapia also spawn thousands of fry - they're k-strategists, they spawn hundreds/thousands of little guys in the hopes that like 10 of them surive to adulthood. In the wild, that's about the right survival percentage, but in controlled conditions, you can get 90% or more of the fry to adulthood (1 to 2 lbs).

In terms of meat efficiency, Tilapia weight is equal to the weight of food they consume, a nearly 1:1 ratio. Chickens/Poultry, on the other hand, are nearly a 2lbs of food to 1lb of meat ratio, and that's among the best of traditionally-grown meat animals.

And depending on your setup, a good aquaponics system can be a minimal-grid technology - all it needs is some way to get the water from the bottom of the system to the top mechancially, and there's a shiatton of optios from that from water fountain pumps to just buckets on a chain.

Further, if you want to go indoors and *stack* the systems, you begin to see the great advantages aquaponics has. In traditional agriculture, you are limited to one z-level. Volume doesn't come into play, it's all area. In Aquaponics, you can stack the systems. Just a rough guestimating from my figures, you could fill a standard warehouse with 3 levels of system. Of course in this case you'd have to use artificial lighting and a more robust water pumpt system, but the lighting can be provided via low-energy LED grow lights.

Using a system similar to this, Popular Science (back in like... 2008?) had an article where a tower using these technologies could be built, would be minimal grid, and could feed a quarter of the population of New York City. What I'm proposing is a TINY version of that.

Now, I don't expect the 500 since I"m still in the research phase, but do keep this sort of thing in mind, if not to fund me, than to fund it SOMEWHERE!

Drink and smoke less and work more? She needs to eat less and realize that trolling the rest of the 99% of the population AND being a billionaire still won't change the fact that she uglier than Jaba the Hut.

Neither of these guys had parents on food stamps or parents living pay check to pay check. Zuckerberg and gates both went to exclusive prep schools and had enough wealth to afford to go to Harvard and was raised in an atmosphere where he had the connections to apply. These are people that were born on third base.

Jon Snow:BgJonson79: From the article: Mrs Rinehart, who has seen her fortunes rise after parlaying a multi-million dollar inheritance into a mining empire now worth more than $20 billion.

Her inheritance was a percentage of a mining empire. It doesn't specify a number. Multi-million could mean $2m, or it could mean $999m. Where are you getting "a 20,000x ROI"?

Regardless, what is your evidence that the increase in her wealth was due to anything other than the increase value of the mining empire due to external demand for metals and coal that she was handed at birth? We already know unequivocally that her fortune doubled in the last year alone due to nothing other than external forces.

I'll admit I'm assuming, but multi-millions in the media usually means > $2 million andAlso, when it comes to pure evidence, I'll admit to more assumption. However, I'm going to go with "innocent before proven guilty" as working is viewed as innocent as inheriting is "guilty."

Anyway, it's unlikely we're gonna convince the other of our points so I'll call it an afternoon. Have a good one, and have fun nailing Ygritte IRL, too :-D

Neither of these guys had parents on food stamps or parents living pay check to pay check. Zuckerberg and gates both went to exclusive prep schools and had enough wealth to afford to go to Harvard and was raised in an atmosphere where he had the connections to apply. These are people that were born on third base.

Also... they're smart. If you have $1 billion, but an IQ of 85, you're still not going to Harvard.

Neither of these guys had parents on food stamps or parents living pay check to pay check. Zuckerberg and gates both went to exclusive prep schools and had enough wealth to afford to go to Harvard and was raised in an atmosphere where he had the connections to apply. These are people that were born on third base.

Also... they're smart. If you have $1 billion, but an IQ of 85, you're still not going to Harvard.

Infernalist:If the French Revolution comes back into fashion, I'll be at the front of the thronging mob that heads into her ivory tower to drag her bloated, selfish fat ass down to the street to be pelted with trash and small blunt objects before being beheaded on live CNN.

stevetherobot:fireclown: Probably something to that, even though the messenger might be less than ideal.

What the hell. OK FARK, lets brainstorm. I'm willing to blow $500 on a startup. It has to be something that I can do while still working full time. Gimme your ideas.

Instead of blowing $500 why don't you just quit smoking, drinking and socializing?

Not buying things? That would hurt the economy. Doesn't matter that a large chunk of our economy relies 100% on people making bad choices. It's perfect. Companies get rich, AND they get to look down on their customers as scum.

Neither of these guys had parents on food stamps or parents living pay check to pay check. Zuckerberg and gates both went to exclusive prep schools and had enough wealth to afford to go to Harvard and was raised in an atmosphere where he had the connections to apply. These are people that were born on third base.

Also... they're smart. If you have $1 billion, but an IQ of 85, you're still not going to Harvard.

The Stealth Hippopotamus:I dont care what you say about this lady she was handed she built on it. She is a success. Maybe just maybe she could have just sat on the money and not done a damn thing but live off the interest for the rest of her life. Instead she put people to work and make money while doing it. I can see why people around her would trash her for it.

Here's the problem. If you are handed millions you have money and time to invest and work on growing your fortune.

If you are a single parent working 2-3 jobs to make ends meet you are lucky if, by the end of the month, you can pay your bills. There is no "working harder" once you are already working 2-3 jobs and raising a kid. There are only so many hours in a day.

I have several friends who have kids and work multiple HARD jobs like waitress, bartender, etc. They get up early, work all day, and if they are lucky get to spend an hour or two with their kids before collapsing from exhaustion to start again tomorrow.

Neither of these guys had parents on food stamps or parents living pay check to pay check. Zuckerberg and gates both went to exclusive prep schools and had enough wealth to afford to go to Harvard and was raised in an atmosphere where he had the connections to apply. These are people that were born on third base.

Also... they're smart. If you have $1 billion, but an IQ of 85, you're still not going to Harvard.

BgJonson79:Jon Snow: BgJonson79: Because she made 20,000x more money than what she started off with

How much did she start off with? Where are you getting this number?

She received, as part of a trust, a share of a mining empire. The empire's value doubled in the last year alone, due to completely external reasons. Her current wealth includes all of the money that should (by terms of the trust) have passed on to her children, but she is fighting them in court to prevent them from receiving their share, which was between a quarter and a fifth of "her" overall worth prior to the aforementioned doubling.

You're talking out of your ass. You have zero evidence that she did anything other than inherit a fortune. Except perhaps that she's also a greedy beast who won't allow her children the same access to the family trust that got her rich in the first place.

From the article: Mrs Rinehart, who has seen her fortunes rise after parlaying a multi-million dollar inheritance into a mining empire now worth more than $20 billion.

I stand by my claim that it's not easy to get a 20,000x ROI. If you think it's easy, please show me the way so I can go do it :-D

Stand by your claim all you want, it's plainly obvious that it was a right place at the right time situation. Bill Gates would have likely been a success, but the reason he's one of the richest in the world is also a right place at the right time situation.

Summercat:Using a system similar to this, Popular Science (back in like... 2008?) had an article where a tower using these technologies could be built, would be minimal grid, and could feed a quarter of the population of New York City. What I'm proposing is a TINY version of that.

Now, I don't expect the 500 since I"m still in the research phase, but do keep this sort of thing in mind, if not to fund me, than to fund it SOMEWHERE!

/I'd name it Project Erdos.

Believe it or not, I had a great uncle who ran a secret aquaponics operation. He was a maintenance guy in a graveyard in rural Illinois. There was a pond in it where he raised catfish. The folks who owned the graveyard never knew about it, and legend has it that he made some decent scratch from it.

SpectroBoy:I have several friends who have kids and work multiple HARD jobs like waitress, bartender, etc

Sorry but no. You dont get to claim that being a waitress or a bartender is hard. I've worked with both, and that aint hard. Taring roofs, welding, or working a blast furnace now that hard. You know what else is hard? Worrying about making payroll, DOT compliance and dealing with workers comp. How that's hard. Someone being rude to you for forgetting the mustard? Doesn't match up.

Three of them are in their 80's and still work to this day. You can't tell them apart from an average joe (other than the fact that two of them own a jet and like to fly across the country as their 'hobby').

fireclown:Summercat: Using a system similar to this, Popular Science (back in like... 2008?) had an article where a tower using these technologies could be built, would be minimal grid, and could feed a quarter of the population of New York City. What I'm proposing is a TINY version of that.

Now, I don't expect the 500 since I"m still in the research phase, but do keep this sort of thing in mind, if not to fund me, than to fund it SOMEWHERE!

/I'd name it Project Erdos.

Believe it or not, I had a great uncle who ran a secret aquaponics operation. He was a maintenance guy in a graveyard in rural Illinois. There was a pond in it where he raised catfish. The folks who owned the graveyard never knew about it, and legend has it that he made some decent scratch from it.